why Gayatri Spivak (2002: 48) observes that the phenomenon of “large-scale movements
of people” from these parts of the world have been renamed diaspora. Moreover, because
the pattern of movements Spivak tries to capture connects to the colonial history of the
nations involved, it is understandable when she remarks further that there is a resultant
effect which makes “the premodern principle of demographic frontiers... encroach upon
imperial territorial frontiers ” (ibid). With respect to the texts under study nothing could
be more factual as they concentrate largely on the movement of Africans to countries of
the West which one way or the other have had some kind of colonial influence on their
countries in the past.
Yet the tendency to link or substitute diaspora for exile is no new phenomenon. Scholars
and theorists alike have always dealt with the question of the interrelatedness if not
interchangeability of both terms, as the discussion of one invokes thoughts of the other.^11
In her introduction to At Home in Diaspora Wendy Walters (2005: x), for instance, uses
both concepts interchangeably in order to make a statement on their interwoven
relationship particularly when it has to do with their reputation as catalysts for literary
production: “One way to approach the concept of diaspora and literature is to state that
the condition of exile/diaspora is the material condition that produces particular... literary
responses”. However, the challenge of living and survival in countries of arrival
presupposes an effort to take a more critical look at the concept of diaspora.
It is on account of this that Walters extends her reflection on diaspora beyond the
commonplace as she sheds light on the complexity of its dynamics as arising precisely
from the impossibility of exclusivity of the lives exiles live. It is at this point that we must
take into account that diasporas do not live in isolation from the natives or indigenes/
citizens in their countries of arrival. In fact, it is through the analysis of the commonality
of the space they share that we can truly assess the impact of the experience of their
11
On account of their close relatedness Nico Israel (2000: ix-x) combines exile and diaspora, pointing to
those salient aspects of the concepts that can be read together precisely because of “their relation to
nationalism and colonialism, to authority and institutionality, and above all, to broader questions of
subjectivity, race, location, and language, as these concepts themselves change during the course of the
century” One must also add that whatever changes exile and diaspora assumed in the 20th century did not
mark the end of their dynamism; which is why the 21st century must be anticipated as capable of advancing
such changes so long as our disposition to inventing new terminologies persists.